Locating where a Virginian might be from

Lots of people are from Virginia. Lots of people are proud to be from Virginia. Ancestors coming out of Virginia did not always provide us with direct evidence of where they were from. I have used two books with success in getting a Virginian back into their county of origin. Netti Schreiner-Yantis and Florene Speakman Love published in three volumes The 1787 census of Virginia in 1987. Whenever I am doing Virginia research in this time period I consult these lists to see where the surname is found in the state. I will also take the names of the current neighbors of the person in question and look for those surnames. Families travel together from one place to another and clusters of surnames in one place may have resulted from clusters of surnames in another. My understanding is that this series, although available in individual booklets for the counties of Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia extant in 1787 (all in Virginia at that time, of course), is almost out of print. No Virginian researcher should be without it. If it is still available it is only available new from the author.